View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Dadun, University of Navarra Pablo Castrillo Towards a narrative definition of [email protected] PhD Candidate and Lecturer. the American political thriller film University of Navarra. Spain. Pablo Echart Abstract [email protected] Senior Lecturer in The Hollywood political thriller is a film genre of unique Screenwriting. University of relevance in the United States, often acting as a reflection of the Navarra. Spain. fears and anxieties of its historical times. At the same time, however, the definition of its identity and boundaries still leaves Submitted room for further specification, perhaps due to the frequent June 4, 2015 consideration of the political thriller as part of the broader Approved September 30, 2015 categories of either thriller narratives or political films. By revising the available literature and filmography and analyzing the narrative features of the classical political thriller, this © 2015 Communication & Society article proposes a deeper definition of the genre that takes into ISSN 0214-0039 account the nature of the broader ‘thriller’ category of films E ISSN 2386-7876 springing from a specific mode of crime fiction that focuses on a doi: 10.15581/003.28.4. 109-123 www.communication-society.com victim or threatened individual as its protagonist, depicts and conveys intense emotional states, portrays an unbalanced and highly existentialist worldview, and travels into the 2015 – Vol. 28(4), pp. 109-123 extraordinary while at the same time holding on to very concrete expectations of verisimilitude. The political thriller How to cite this article: specifies this broader form of narration and links it to dramatic Castrillo, P. & Echart, P. (2015). conflicts of political nature, investigative plots, reactive Towards a narrative definition of characters, historically grounded antagonists, a proximity to the American political thriller film. Communication & Society 28(4), 109- the sociopolitical history of the United States, and a certain 123. iconography relating to institutional power. By establishing the main narrative traits of the political thriller, this definition hopes to lay the foundations for a better understanding of the genre, its history, and its seeming renaissance at the onset of the st 21 Century. Keywords Political thriller, film genre, Hollywood film, United States history, film narrative analysis 1. Introduction The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Ian Scott The political thriller is a relevant genre both as a specific form of thriller and thank him for his valuable narratives in film and television, as well as a particular kind of political feedback and suggestions, which text. Besides, the political thriller in Hollywood appears as an important have greatly helped this article reach its final form and cultural artifact, displaying a close connection between its narratives publication. and the current events at any given point in the history of the United 109 ISSN 2386-7876 – © 2015 Communication & Society, 28(4), 109-123 Castrillo, P. & Echart, P. Towards a narrative definition of the American political thriller film States. These three aspects —the “thriller” narrative mode, political content in film or television texts, and their proximity with the historical environment— have a unique relationship of mutuality. Coyne has pointed out that both thrillers and political films are “essentially fluid” categories in the sense that they allow for a great variety of texts within their scope, while at the same time sharing an inclination to establish a dialogue with “the temper of the times, effortlessly absorbing contemporary political themes and issues” (Coyne, 2008: 9-10). It is true, however, that there is notable difficulty in attempting to build a characterization of what the political thriller is as a genre, in good measure because of the preexisting disagreement on the notion of thriller itself. The concept of thriller as an overarching, broader category has been indeed traditionally unclear, or at least, its definitions have varied between authors, its boundaries often blurred, overlapped, and hybridized with other genres. As an example, if one consults the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) at any given time, and lists all films under the “thriller” category by largest box office performance in the U.S., the results show a surprising heterogeneity in the genre, which points to the difficulty in attempting to define or systematize it.1 Many authors have attempted to define the thriller from various points of view: most preeminent among them is the genre approach (Derry, 1998; Rubin, 1999), but there are also relevant works from media and cultural studies (Cobley, 2000; Mesce, 2007) as well as psychology and emotions, particularly in analyzing suspense (Gow, 1968; Löker, 2005). Furthermore, political thrillers, given their very designation, have attracted attention from authors who have focused on the broader label of “political film” (Coyne, 2008; Giglio, 2010; Scott, 2011). While such a label is certainly constructive for scholars studying the impact of politics in popular culture and vice versa, it still leaves room to approach the political thriller from the perspective of its generic content and form, as a unity of myth, conventions, and iconography, with its own language and narrative standards. The label “political film” inevitably includes narratives that deal with politics without further specification, regardless of whether they do so as dramas, comedies, or even action- adventure films. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to propose a definition of the political thriller genre from the perspective of narrative content, identifying its own generic language and dramatic identity traits, and claiming a proper “set of conventions and shared characteristics that have historically evolved into a distinct, widely recognized type of composition” (Rubin, 1999: 3). The political thriller, however, is a transnational construct, and European cinema has undoubtedly played an important role in its development. In fact, the earliest roots of the genre can be found in the “thrill and spills of political intrigue and spying” (Scott, 2011: 121) of films like Fritz Lang’s Spione (1928) or Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) or The 39 Steps (1935), among others. This article, however, takes as its main scope what we consider to be the predominant body of works, namely, that of the Hollywood industry. This prevalence is not just industrial, since the subject matter, conflicts, and characters of the political thriller, as we shall see, connect in a direct and unique way with U.S. history and culture. Furthermore, even though American film is generally configured by the standards of “classical Hollywood narrative” or style (Bordwell & Thompson, 2010: 102), some of the works in the genre stand out for their tendency to challenge their audiences, causing confusion and distress in the viewers, and keeping them in the dark with regards to narrative information. Paradigmatic of this 1 Just the top ten titles include a superhero movie (The Dark Knight Rises, 2012), several sci-fi adventures (i.e. Jurassic Park, 1993), two crime-related action movies (Fast & Furious 6, 2013, and the comedic Beverly Hills Cop, 1984), a psychological horror film (The Sixth Sense, 1999), and a disaster movie (Twister, 1996). Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), data retrieved on March 17, 2015. 110 ISSN 2386-7876 – © 2015 Communication & Society 28(4), 109-123 Castrillo, P. & Echart, P. Towards a narrative definition of the American political thriller film phenomenon is The Parallax View (1974), received with mixed reviews at the time of its release, mainly due to its unusual ending in which “knowledge is still denied [and] the viewer is left frustrated” (Ryan & Kellner, 1988: 99). From a temporal standpoint, this article chooses to focus firstly on works that are considered to be classics of the genre, most of them made during the1970s. Events such as the Kennedy assassination in 1963, the escalation of the Vietnam war, and the 1972 Watergate scandal created layers of discontent that accumulated in the public’s psyche, giving rise to a unique era of disenchantment, loss of innocence, and cynicism (Anderson, 2007: 69) as well as moral ambiguity and narrative pessimism (Mesce, 2007: 100). We will also refer to a certain cycle of 1990s films that partakes in this plenitude of the political thriller —albeit with a tendency towards more closure and happy endings—, but we will not cross the line of 9/11. The relevant shifts that have taken place in the contemporary entertainment industry (new distribution platforms, another “golden age” of television, greater genre hybridization, etc.) make it advisable to focus this study on works of the genre made before entering the 21st Century, hoping it will be instructive for subsequent analyses of post-9/11 political thrillers. Another precision we feel is necessary to make is that of the specificity of the politics present on screen. Authors Christensen and Haas (2005: 7-8) distinguish between “pure political movies” versus other types of less politically conscious film texts according to the degree of their “political content,” which includes the “depiction of some aspect of political reality,” and their “political intent,” referring to narratives that “seek to judge, prescribe, and/or persuade” about specific politics. Scott agrees with them in such distinction, speaking of “movies that offer politics with a capital rather than a small ‘p’” (Scott, 2011: 12). As it will be seen throughout this article, the definition of political thriller we are about to propose does not demand the identification of concrete political identities or agendas, while on the other hand, it does require that political causes be a major dramatic motivation of the plot. 2. The thriller In order to understand and better approach a definition of the political thriller, it is incumbent to first explore the notion of the thriller in general, which, as mentioned, is a rather problematic endeavor.